Tern Growing Steadily Into First Full Year

Urban transport specialist, Tern, today announced that less than a year after its official launch, the company is shipping product to distributors worldwide and is on pace to ship 100,000 bikes by the end of calendar 2012. Tern has now delivered product to 40 distributors in 34 countries throughout Asia, Europe, North America, and South America and continues to ramp up production.

“We’ve had a pretty busy twelve months in 2011,” stated Joshua Hon, Tern vice president. “In that time, we launched a completely new brand, developed twenty-two new bike models incorporating twenty new patented technologies, opened a few hundred custom toolings, set up Service Centers in the U.S., Germany, and Taiwan, established distribution operations in the U.S., Taiwan, and China, and built a global network of 40 distributors. Manufacturing ramp up has been a bit slower than we’d like but we’re making good progress on the few issues that have popped up. It’s been a wild ride but the team is super-motivated and the feedback from the market regarding our bikes has been more than a little encouraging.”

The company’s Eclipse S11i received a Eurobike Award at the 2011 Eurobike Show and the Verge X10 was just awarded a Taipei Cycle Design & Innovation Award at the 2012 Taipei Cycle Show — both awards are organized by iF. Reviews from the cycle trade media include comments like, “The Tern Verge is the best folding bike I’ve ever been on, bar none.” (Cycling.tv, Jan. 2012), “The Verge X10 is impressively stiff and the geometry is dialed…” (VeloNews, November, 2011), and “A first class premium folder with perfect execution of the most minute details.” (Aktiv Radfahren, Megatest, 1/2-2012).

Tern offers five bike platforms with a total of twenty-two models in multiple wheel sizes. The company also produces a line of custom accessories for its bikes, including racks, bicycle travel cases, and bags.

“It’s been one whirlwind of a year but the trade and consumer response to our new brand has really been unprecedented,” commented Matthew Davis, Tern director of global sales and marketing. “Who would’ve thought that nine months after the launch of a new brand, in the midst of a global recession, we would have 40 distributors, hundreds of dealers with shop-in-shop Tern displays, and even the first of many Tern flagship stores? We’ve also just launched our first global ad campaign and visitors to the Taipei show will be able to experience it first hand; subway cars across four main MRT rail lines will feature our ‘OPEN’ advertisements. Simultaneously on the other side of the globe in the bike-friendly city of Austin, Tern is at SXSW with SXCycles, the first bike share program for that massive event.”

“It has been quite a busy year for us,” stated Davis. “We still have a lot to do, but we are a young, energetic team of dedicated people who are really passionate about what we do so you can expect to see a lot more great things from us.”